


Shattermind

by grayangel19



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M, Psychological Torture, Torture, Violence, a goldmine of mental problems in this thing, my head fucking hurts, shattermind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3304880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayangel19/pseuds/grayangel19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Under extreme physical stress, the only safe place for Shiro to go is inside his own mind. He should be safe there right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattermind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bwoodystweam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwoodystweam/gifts).



> I'm sorry 囚人.

 

“How much does it hurt?”

_Oh just a tiny bit doctor, it’s only a flesh wound._

The man who had been torturing Shiro for the past 17 hours raised his scalpel, soaked in the blood and muscle of Shiro’s arm.

“I **asked** you… how. much. does. it. hurt?” Each word brought a new cut into Shiro’s arm. It didn’t hurt so much anymore. There wasn’t much arm left at this point for him to hurt. The first hour had cost him his fingernails. The next, his fingers, another hour his tonails, followed by his toes, and each foot and hand, piece by piece with pliers.

“Quite a lot thanks for asking.” Shiro growled.

If he ever got out of this Shiro wasn’t going to waste his time torturing this filth. It wouldn’t be any fun without having the time to get creative. He would come for him later, another day, and then this man would regret everything. The pain, the hunger, the loneliness.

Lonely? Shiro wasn’t lonely. No time to be lonely here. Not in the place he had been born. The same place he’d learn to count, to fight, to eat. This was not a place to be lonely, only to suffer, fight, or die. Yet, here was a feeling in his heart, a cold little hollow that hurt almost as much as his missing limbs. Someone was supposed to be here to fill the hollow weren’t they? A person, an emotion, a bond to hold him together. Where was he? Where was Kaneki?

Shiro’s train of thought was violently derailed by breaking of his femur. It hurt more than he could understand, vivid hallucinations and inhuman sounds occupied the bulk of his mental awareness as his leg became nothing but a worthless limb that screamed in his head louder than his voice could ever attempt.

“No thinking about happier places. Can’t have you doing anything but feeling the pain I give you.” the man growled. “You’re my toy as long as you’re here, mine to play with, mine to break as I choose.”

Shiro wished he could heal, anything to fix the pain in his leg. Everything else could be ignored, but this hurt far more than any of Yamori’s attempts purely because it was new, nothing he had ever had to feel before.

_Something hurts more. I miss Kaneki._

Kaneki! That’s what was missing! Where was he? He had been beside him a few hours ago hadn’t he? They couldn’t see him, they couldn’t hurt him, as long as Shiro kept him in his head there shouldn’t be any way they could hurt his most precious love could they? But if that was the case, where was Kaneki?

Shiro looked around frantically, willing his hallucination to overlap his normal sight like it always did when things got dark. Nothing appeared, not his soft black hair, not his gentle gray eyes, nothing.

“Oh so you’ve realized it at last have you.” his captor crooned.

His head turning so fast his spine audibly cracked, Shiro fixed his gaze on the man in front of him.

“What have you done?” he hissed

“Wouldn’t you like to know? I see no reason to tell you anything when you won’t scream anymore.”

**“TELL ME WHERE KANEKI IS!”** Shiro’s teeth clashed together with such force that blood began to slide between his jaws, pooling on the back of his tongue.

“Well this is absolutely wonderful! For that absolutely… _delicious_ reaction, I’ll tell you. Mixed in with the Rc paralyzer I’ve been injecting you with is a hallucinogenic of extreme potency. It shows you the greatest emotional fears you are capable of feeling, and apparently it’s powerful enough to cover up the ones you are making on your own. How interesting. I suppose I have no need of these anymore.” the man then turned to his tables of tools and hurled it aside with a crash that made Shiro flinch even through his terrible rage.

“ **I’ll eat you. Crush your flesh in my teeth. Snap your bones between my jaws. Take you apart inch by inch!”**

“Oh yes, this is a much better way to play with you. Let’s see now, I think we’ll start with this.” Reaching over to another table, the man picked up a large machine saw, easily capable of cutting Shiro apart in his current state, but not a weapon he had any fear of.

“What would you do I wonder, if I were to cut your head open and start poking around in your mind? Start taking it apart? A memory here, a skill here, what kind of reaction will you give me?”

“ **No. NoNoNoNONONONO NO! You can’t have him! He’s not yours! HE BELONGS TO ME!”**

“Hm. We’ll see about that.”

The next few minutes were horrible. A horrible grinding sound filled his ears, and his own blood mingled with desperate tears as he struggled to avoid the machine, but to no avail.

“I think we’ll start by getting rid of your eyes. Those won’t be important to you anymore. Confine this to just what you see in your head.”

With the awful sound of scissors opening and closing in two practiced moves and a sickening pop, Shiro could no longer see. His sight was replaced by the shifting landscape of his inner mind, a field of sickeningly red flowers, spreading as far as he could comprehend.

There was but with one redeeming sight in the middle. Shiro was on Kaneki before his beloved even realized he was there, crushing him to his chest in an embrace that Shiro would never end if he could help it. Even without his eyes, he could still see Kaneki’s beautiful face, so as long as he could survive until he could regrow them he could continue to feel Kaneki by his side.

“It will be ok Shiro. You won’t lose me that easily.” Kaneki laughed

“I don’t intend to ever lose you. You’re mine to hold remember. Until death do we part.”

“But even then I’ll still be here. You can never truly lose yourself, even in death.”

That made Shiro smile, to know that even if he didn’t escape here alive Kaneki would still be with him.

“I imagine you’re having some heartwarming moments in there but I think it’s time for me to intervene for my own personal enjoyment.”

A resounding thump sounded in Shiro’s skull, but there was no pain, or any change in sensation other than the vibration and sound. Inside his mind however, Shiro was assaulted by memories of his creation, Yamori’s laughter overlapping the pain of torture as if he had never been through it before. Starting all over again at the worst point of his life.

“I think it’s only right to let you know that I have just provoked your amygdala to call up some of the things that create your deepest fears. I can barely contain my excitement at the things that you must be perceiving now that you can’t use your eyes to see something else.”

Eventually the flood of horror subsided and he heard the man move around to a different point on his head.

“Now if I poke the same place a different way, you get a very different reaction.”

Beautiful memories of Kaneki danced before his inner vision, all the times he had retreated to various halls and rooms in his mind and Kaneki had found him. A bedroom, a bathroom, daytime, nighttime, it didn’t matter where or when chances were Kaneki had spent time with him at that time or place.

These memories were gone all too soon, and Shiro gripped Kaneki all the tighter as they drifted away, worried that he too would float away.

“A fun little gift wasn’t it? You probably thought it ended to soon did you not? Not to worry, you’ll get a few more before our time is up. Now if I use a different tool like this…”

Again the happy memories returned, Kaneki coming into the bedroom where he had hidden for 3 days in a cocoon of blankets, gently pulling off the layers before joining him and closing the hole behind him, staying there with him for the next 2 days holding Shiro’s shivering form to his warm light, complete trust in Shiro not to harm him for seeking him out while he was starving.

This time, as they faded something was wrong. Shiro couldn’t feel the memories going back to the back of his head where they belonged, replaced instead with a flow of cold that seemed to be slowly trickling deeper into his mind as more memories passed. A twilight bath with Kaneki. A late spring morning in a house Shiro had put hours into laying out in his mind. Each was lost after that last passionate experience.

It wasn’t until Shiro looked around at the flower field that he truly began to panic. The red flowers were beginning to curl up into black husks becoming indistinguishable from the darkening sky. Even his private place was being violated by this infidel. It wasn’t until he felt Kaneki sag in his arms that Shiro realized it wasn’t just the flowers. Kaneki’s clothes had vanished, and he was shivering in Shiro’s arms as the shadows closed in, not quickly, but constantly, an ominous and seemingly inescapable tide of absolute insanity.

He had to do something. There must be a way to save Kaneki, Shiro would not survive if he lost his most precious love. There was nothing he could do here, he would have to return to his body in full, and try to stop the approaching madness.

As Shiro struggled to pull himself back into the damaged body that he instinctively resisted returning to his last look at Kaneki was of the boy he loved most in the world being surrounded by a void of insanity.

“… **mine.** **”** Shiro breathed.

“Oh so you’re awake again! Hang on, almost done, just let me finish up and we won’t be having anymore troubles with your Kaneki friend!” the man laughed

“ **MINE!”** Shiro shrieked.

Ripping the remains of his arms and legs from the manacles, losing the last pieces of muscle and exposing the broken bones, Shiro navigated by smell and sound alone.

Pulling his head away from the tools, he twisted using the armlocks as a brace to launch himself towards his captor, the exposed bone of his legs plunging deep into the man’s torso as he stumbled backwards under Shiro’s spasming form. In a blind* rage, Shiro ripped his tormenter apart, eating random pieces, punching holes and ripping outwards, until finally the screaming stopped and he could eat in peace.

As the hours passed and his wounds healed Shiro searched frantically for Kaneki. Every corner, every room, flipping through days and seasons as fast as he possibly could to find him. He couldn’t find the flower field, he couldn’t feel it. Even when his eyes returned he stayed curled tightly into a ball, frantically searching his mind, his fingers dancing over his face and hair like spiders.

All was lost. Kaneki was gone. He hadn’t moved fast enough. Curling into a ball so tight he nearly broke his spine, Shiro began to cry. Soft keening sobs slipped through his clenched teeth as he mourned the loss of the only man he had ever or would ever love.

Hours and days passed without hunger or sleep, only sorrow, time had no meaning, with Shiro drifting between dreams and reality as his mind shattered at the loss of Kaneki. Anyway he could bring him back he would, any price, any trial and Shiro would have faced it with a smile if he could guarantee Kaneki’s return.

The first piece appeared a week after losing Kaneki, when Shiro was quite sure he was hallucinating and all but dismissed it as worthless. A glass puzzle piece, one side riddled with small weaves and waves like a frozen ocean. It floated over near Shiro, a low note playing at random intervals until finally he swatted it, causing it to glow and emit a sound that almost broke Shiro’s heart. “I love you.” Spoken in Kaneki’s voice so clearly he knew it had to be real. The next one appeared 4 days later, and Shiro instantly jumped on it, rewarded this time with: “I’m glad you’re back Shiro.” In the same beautiful voice. As days progressed more and more appeared, each with another touch of Kaneki’s voice, appearing so frequently and in such numbers that Shiro deployed his kagune in all its glory for fear of missing one.

“I missed you.” “Do you want to take a bath?” “I had a good time with you.” “Thank you for coming.” “Will you come back soon?” “Can it be springtime now?” “I need a hug.” “Can’t you stay longer?” “Please don’t go.” “ **I’ll always love you Shiro.** ”

Tears flowed freely down Shiro’s face with each new word Kaneki said. After seven days of frantic scrambling without rest, and 993 glass pieces collected a new doorway appeared. There was no time to hesitate, Shiro ran through it without a second thought. He ran for a very long time, hours upon hours without stopping until he came to a bundle of blankets laying in front of him. Carefully pulling them back, terrified beyond words at what he might find, pushed aside the last one and began to cry. Kaneki smiled up at him once again and it was all Shiro could do not to break his bones in a hug. Gently laying himself beside Kaneki and pulling him close as his tears soaked into Kaneki’s soft black hair, Shiro nudged the blankets back together, sealing them safely away for an eternity in each other’s arms, safe in Shiro’s new mind.

**Author's Note:**

> *That was a horrible pun and I am a horrible person for using it.


End file.
